I stumbled across some old painted figures in a box the other day, and they brought back memories!

It was probably the 1990s, and I was painted my first 15mm fantasy figures. The figures were from Grenadier (I was a big fan). If I recall correctly, I had read in a pamphlet from GDW about how Duke Seifried was championing a system called stainpainting – essentially, a quick-paint system using washes – and I was trying it out on these figures.

The figures were intended for an upcoming fantasy campaign involving a small Dwarven army attempting to escape from an invading Goblin horde. The first battle involved the Dwarves, weighted down by their artillery, making a stand and fighting the Goblin pursuit forces. It was a great idea, and I don't know why we never got it onto the tabletop!

And here they were in a box, a few Dwarven spearmen and a command element. The artillery had been repurposed long ago. The figures were based individually on ½" by ½" bases because I was toying at the time with the idea of using different megnet-lined movement trays so the figures could adapt to any ruleset. (It was too fiddly.)

The original concept was that the Dwarves were a type of Chaos-worshipping bunch that lived in a volcano. So I painted them in a scheme of yellow and red – what one of my co-workers once called my McDonaldland Dwarves!

It seemed a shame to leave them languishing… so I decided to put them back onto the gaming table!

Stage One

I dusted the figures off, and removed them from their individual metal bases.

I've been playing a lot of Mighty Armies (Rebel Minis) lately, so I decided to rebase to their standard. I even used the "official" plastic bases.

And here they are:

Only five stands total.

The command stand, with leader, standardbearer, and musician:

The banner has a volcano, of course.

And the spearmen:

Every shield is unique.

Maybe not the best-painted figures, but they were my first 15mm fantasy!

Stage Two

Well, that's not many figures, even for a game of Mighty Armies! So I went hunting, and gathered the rest of the Grenadier Dwarf figures that I had collected long ago.

Note that these Dwarf figures are tiny by modern 15mm standards (scale creep!). I suppose you could always classify them as Hill Dwarves (smaller than Mountain Dwarves), but I'm not too worried about it. I believe the figures are no longer sold, but Mirliton had the molds last I knew.

Doing a quick inventory, I discovered that I had unpainted reserves of crossbowmen, swordmen, axemen, a few runecaster types, command figures, and two sizes of cannon. Enough to flesh out the army!

Stage Three

Realizing that I already had a lot of projects on my plate, I decided the best thing would be to send the unpainted figures off to a painting service, with detailed instructions and pictures of the figures that were already painted.

The figures have been shipped off, and now I wait…

It feels good to think these 'refurbished' and expanded Dwarves will be hitting a gaming table within the next few months!